Cambiemos Orihuela urged on Monday, February 9th, that the Orihuela City Council appear “immediately” in the court lawsuit involving subsidies awarded to the Orihuela Football Club between 2007 and 2009.
The municipal group finds it “incomprehensible” that, despite the Prosecutor’s Office’s offer to represent the City Council as an injured party and seek compensation, the Council has yet to formalise its appearance.
Prison terms
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office is requesting eight years in prison for former Orihuela mayor Mónica Lorente, former councillors Antonio Lidón and Antonio Rodríguez Murcia, and three leaders of the defunct Orihuela Football Club: José Rodríguez Murcia, José Agustín Rodríguez Gascón, and Domingo Alcocer, for crimes related to the allegedly irregular awarding of four municipal subsidies totalling 824,000 euros between 2007 and 2009. The trial was supposed to begin last Thursday at the Seventh Section of the Provincial Court, but it has been postponed and rescheduled for early 2027.
Cambiemos believes that “defending the general interest is not an option.” It is a legal and moral requirement. If there are suspicions that public funds have been misused, the City Council must be involved in the investigation to collect every last cent,” declared Quique Montero, a councillor from this party.
Look the other way
The Cambiemos Orihuela party warns that failing to appear in this case effectively means turning a blind eye to potential misuse of public funds and siding with individuals under investigation for these events.
Abandoning the defence of municipal interests when everyone’s money is at stake renders the City Council politically involved, by omission, in an intolerable breach of duty. Cambiemos Orihuela requests that the mayor and his governing team take prompt action, formally join the proceedings, and support Orihuela and its people, not those accused of wrongdoing.
Yes, he will claim
Municipal sources stated that the legal department developed its view of the municipality’s participation in legal proceedings in a report prepared in 2020. This document provides, in principle, that in circumstances where the City Council may be affected, the municipality trusts the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which serves the general interest, and takes no further action. If, following the judgement, it becomes necessary to seek compensation for the amounts, as the Public Prosecutor’s Office does, the City Council will pursue this claim.
In this regard, they stated that when the Public Prosecutor’s Office did not claim these potential damages, such as the garbage burial in La Murada, it was the City Council that stepped in, maintaining its appearance as an accuser in the trial, to claim two million euros in that case.
Author: Derek Appleton
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